for my students

i think the reason i've so enjoyed teaching in the current workplace, is because there's this incredible sense of potential in the students here. So many of them are so special in so many ways -- or rather, in ways different from most other people (because everyone is a special snowflake, right?) -- and, for me, what draws my heart to them is that sense of a struggle to become. There are so many pressures on people to be who they are not, and it's always a challenge, having to negotiate and find a way to stay true to oneself while also living in the world and making sure one's contributions can be realised -- made real -- in the hurly-burly of human society.
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It's a challenge for everyone, but, perhaps, for some more than others. i know that, in the eyes of some, my students are social misfits, incorrigibly unable to follow the social norms that would gain them ready acceptance in normal society. But then, what is 'normal'? 'Normal' is the numerical majority. (It's called the 'normal distribution' for a reason ... ) And if my students belong to a minority with special gifts that enable them to make special contributions to the rest of society, then perhaps the focus should not be on trying to make them more 'normal', whatever that means, but on helping them to find a way to manage that tension between self and society that we all experience, but that may be more acute for them than for many others.
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And anyway, so often the social norms really are, if you think about it, a little ridiculous. Or rather, a little petty and small-minded, made for people who, in the words of T.S. Eliot, cannot bear very much reality. So i can understand why some of my students rebel -- they're bright kids, and they see through things so quickly, and are mostly wonderfully free of sentimentality. (It's the logical scientist in them, i think.) When you have the ability to get right to the heart of something, then all the cover-ups and politenesses of 'normal' society can seem at best redundant and pointless, and at worst, deceptive and hypocritical.
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So my challenge as a teacher, as i see it, has been to help them discern the difference between norms and "rules" that can quite easily be ignored because doing so would not harm anybody, and the norms that cannot be breached without doing damage to others or to themselves. To help them realise that there is a difference; and, consequently, to help them manage the trade-offs that inevitably have to be made if they are to ever find a sense of meaning and fulfilment living in the world with others. (As they must. As they will realise once they leave the comfortable confines of the wonderfully Edenic school they are studying in.)
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There are so many other things that have made teaching this batch of students so deeply enjoyable for me. Their quirky humour and lightning-quick wit, their clear-eyed honesty, their passion for the things they feel passionate about. But with all these other things, i often feel like i'm receiving more than i'm giving -- i admit to having been much entertained by my students in this school. i don't think i've entertained them as much in return.
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But the place where i feel i can most make a contribution, is in helping them to bridge that gap between who they are and can be, and what society expects them to be, in a way that does not sacrifice their essential being. And, perhaps, in letting them know that someone understands. i hope my students have felt understood.
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